Classical
by Mab
"Real nice broom handle you've given me here."
Vincent looks up from his paper and rolls his eyes. "Yeah, epitome of manly broomsticks there. Hold it steady or else I'll be showing you just how manly a broomstick it is."
"You're much more manly than any broomstick, baby."
Vincent's shoulders shake with laughter. "Oh, sweetie, don't even try. It doesn't work for you. Stick with that butch thing you have going." His hands sweep across the paper, talented and sure. Vincent snorted his stuff not so long ago and now he's ready to draw. Jim's tried encouraging Vincent to draw without the blow, but not a chance. 'Gotta have the stardust dancing up my nose, Jimmy. Concentrates the mind.'
It's not hard to hold the broomstick steady. It's resting on a stool, so that it's comfortably easy for Jim to grasp it at roughly shoulder height. The damned stupid gesture with his right arm is another matter. Still, Jim has the muscles for holding an arm up in the air for no particular reason.
"How's it going?"
"Impatient. It's going fine. I'm going to have to edit from my model, though."
"If you say so." Jim gestures with his free hand, but then returns it to his original pose at an irritated gesture from the artist. "What is this meant to be, anyway? Flag? Spear?"
"Spear." Vincent's drawing fast, and his leg is jigging up down. He hums to himself in between his words to Jim. "But I didn't mean that. Meant you."
"What's wrong with me?" Jim sounds more offended than he ought to be.
God, Vincent's got a weird laugh. "Oh, Jimmy, Jimmy. Vain little bitch, aren't you? With that silly fluff sitting under your nose." He hums some more. "Yeah, baby," he croons, almost to himself more than to Jim. "Gotta take that fluff out, not classical." He sniffs long and hard and then swallows, "Not classical at all."
He looks up at Jim with a critical eye, all artist. Then he winks. "Might be your lucky day, Jimmy. I feel good. Art and then lovin'. Sound good?"
"Yeah, sure." Jim tries to sound enthusiastic. He's not too worried, though. Vincent will go crazy with the drawing, and then he'll come down and be too tired for sex anyway. And then he'll get irritable, and Jim will piss him off and use the arguments that follow as his excuse to get the hell out. His life is full of routines. This one isn't so different.
There's no more conversation. Vincent is too engrossed in his art, and Jim stands nude on Vincent's dirty floor. Compared to some of the things he does in this job, this is easy. It's easy to stand there in the mid-afternoon and just do nothing and say nothing, think nothing, feel nothing. Jim starts when Vincent throws the drawing pad across the floor.
"Piece of shit," he snarls. It's more early evening now. Jim's been lost in his nothing, and time's gone past.
"Coming down, are you?" he says sardonically.
Vincent rubs his hands up and down his arms, a rough hug to himself, and gives Jim a jaundiced glance, which lightens somewhat as he eyes Jim's body.
"Yeah. Wanna break the fall, baby?" He puts out a hand. "Come to Papa."
Jim shakes his head. "That shit's creepy as hell. You work out your daddy issues with someone else."
Vincent's crossed the distance between them and is all over him now, hands everywhere. They rest for a moment on Jim's face, gentle. "I just want to take care of you, Jimmy."
Jim's gut roils with emotions he doesn't have a name for. "You can't take care of yourself, Vincent, let alone anybody else."
Vincent heaves a huge sigh, and hopeful relief fills Jim's chest, as Vincent lays his head down on Jim's shoulder, his short dark hair pricking against Jim's tender skin. "I can dream, baby. I can dream. Like to dream."
"Yeah, I know you do, Vinnie." Jim pushes Vincent carefully towards the shabby couch and sits him down to lean against the side where the foam doesn't bulge like some pitted fungus. He knows this mood in Vincent. He'll doze for an hour or so and then he'll wake up mean and hungry – but more mean than anything.
"Rest, okay?" Jim says and puts a raggedy throw up around Vincent's shoulders.
"You're good to me, Jimmy." It's said with a sweet smile.
"No, I'm not, Vincent." Jim grabs his clothes and puts them on. He's got things to do, phonecalls to make, where other people can't hear or see him. But before he goes, he takes a look at Vincent's drawing.
"Classical. Definitely classical," he mutters to himself, and then he tears the paper off the pad and folds it – quarters, eights. The cocaine is Vincent's best love, but he still cares enough to buy paper and good pencils. Jim doesn't know how much longer that will last.
The picture ends up lasting out Jim's time under cover. It even goes back home with him, his real home. And when Jim hears that Vincent's dead in some prison brawl, he takes it out, creased and frayed and dirty the way it is now, and he looks at it, and he strokes his hairless lip and chin for a moment and he folds the picture and puts it back away again.
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